Improved method for studying skin lipid samples from cyanoacrylate strips by high-performance thin-layer chromatography.

A non-invasive method for sampling skin surface lipids is cyanoacrylate stripping (CAC-TS). It was the purpose of our study to improve the method for sampling of skin surface lipids and the separation of epidermal lipid fractions by a modification of the methods described by Melnik and by Imokawa et al. Briefly, lipids on the glass slide sampled by CAC-TS from the forearm of 75 volunteers and from the forehead of 60 volunteers were eluted in hexane/ethanol under ultrasonication. Identification of the diluted total superficial sebaceous and epidermal skin lipids was performed by sequential high-performance thin-layer chromatography. For quantification of the lipids we used densitometric methods. By this modified method we were able to show a clear and complete separation of all relevant lipids from a cyanoacrylate strip that represented 1-2 mg stratum corneum only.